Abstract

This Note argues for a new framework for evaluating reliance interests in the Court’s stare decisis analysis. It asserts that certain types of reliance should not be accounted for in the Court’s analysis. Instead, to improve analytical workability and the values that stare decisis aims to promote, the Supreme Court should adopt more objective standards to evaluate the strength of precedent. By adopting this approach to stare decisis analysis, the Court will prevent the deterioration of its perceived integrity and constrain judges.

Part I begins by describing the principle of stare decisis in more detail, giving its history within American jurisprudence and its use through the modern-day Supreme Court. Part II analyzes the Court’s use of the reliance cost factor in various cases to illustrate how the Court manipulates reliance cost to reach its favored decision. Finally, Part III provides commentary on how to transform reliance interest jurisprudence in its current form as an ineffectual subjective factor in stare decisis analysis to a more workable and objective standard that can provide fairer results.

Keywords

Stare Decisis Doctrine, Reliance Interests, Precedent Overruling, Judicial Legitimacy, Horizontal vs. Vertical Stare Decisis, Weak Stare Decisis